LAUSD: New offer rolled out and rejected as chances fade to avert teachers’ strike

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Manuela Panjoj, 42-year-old mother of five children, holds a sign during a news conference outside the Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2019, in Los Angeles, Calif. The union representing teachers in Los Angeles has postponed the start of a possible strike until Monday because of uncertainty over whether a judge would order a delay. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Hours after L.A. Unified School District officials rolled out a new proposal in a last-ditch effort to avert a strike, the teachers’ union on Friday declared an impasse in the talks — calling the latest effort by the district “woefully inadequate.”

Now, 30,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles are set to walk out on Monday — what would be the first strike in the massive public school district since 1989.

“The district again has made insufficient movement and has given us a woefully inadequate proposal,” said Arlene Inouye, co-chair of United Teachers Los Angeles’ bargaining team. “At the end of the session today we declared an impasse.”

The deadlock means the union does not intend to continue negotiating, and barring any change in that position, it appears that the long-anticipated teachers’ strike will really happen.

“If the district has a proposal for us that is demonstrably different between now and Monday, they can send that to us and we will consider it,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said at a news conference after negotiations ended Friday evening.

Caputo-Pearl told teachers, parents and community members to: “Get ready because on Monday we will be on strike for our students, for our schools and for the future of public education in Los Angeles.”

Earlier in the day, district Superintendent Austin Beutner presented a revised proposal and asked the governor to intervene, “to keep us in a room, lock the door or throw away the key if he has to, so we can reach a resolution to avoid a strike.”

The union said the new proposal was inadequate. Caputo-Pearl said he believed the district would receive $140 million in additional funding from the state.

“If we have to strike, the district can end it quickly,” he said.

Caputo-Pearl said he’d welcome involvement from Newsom.

“We’ll accept all the help that we can get,” he said. “That said, it’s very clear that the only thing that may move Austin Beutner is a strike. A strike is a last resort and we have reached that moment.”

In a statement, the district said it is disappointed that UTLA has rejected the offer.

“More than 48 hours remain until Monday when UTLA plans to strike, and we implore UTLA to reconsider,” the statement said. “A strike will harm the students, families and communities we serve, and we have a responsibility to resolve the situation without a strike.”

This weekend offered the last chance to avert a strike that would upend schedules for many families with children in the nation’s second largest school district.

Beutner announced the district’s latest offer to the union, which includes an additional $30 million to hire about 200 more teachers, nurses and counselors.

“This represents the best we can do, recognizing it is our obligation to provide as much resource as possible to support our students at each and every one of our schools,” Beutner said.

But Inouye said the new elements would only be in place for one year under the proposed settlement.

“That just doesn’t cut it,” she said.

She also criticized Beutner for not showing up personally for Friday’s bargaining session and for releasing the proposal to the media before releasing it to the union.

Beutner said the increased offer was contingent on whether the state Legislature adopts Gov. Gavin Newsom’s spending proposal on K-12 education, which was announced on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Beutner said he was formally asking the governor to assist in negotiations with the teachers union.

“We need his help to resolve this,” he said.

The latest offer also relies on an additional $10 million from the L.A. County Office of Education to hire more counselors at elementary schools.

The offer was given to the union Friday afternoon, but was rejected within hours, with Inouye calling the proposal “an insult to us.”

Beutner said he is available 24/7 to continue negotiating, drawing this retort from Inouye based on his afternoon absence during talks: “Where is he?”

The total offer that the district has proposed is $130 million to hire 1,200 teachers, librarians, nurses and counselors. The proposal also includes the same salary offer the district has previously made of a 6 percent raise retroactive to 2017-18.

Specifically, the proposal would:

reduce class size by two students at all middle schools;

cap class sizes in grades 4 to 6 at 35 students;

cap all middle and high school math and English classes at 39 students;

add one nurse five days a week at every elementary school; and

add librarians to every middle school.

If the some 30,000 k-12 educators in Los Angeles strike on Monday, close to half a million students will lack a teacher in their classrooms, which span from Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley to San Pedro.

While students will be expected to continue attending school, many parents are expected to find other alternatives. Still, should the teachers walk out of their classrooms, administrators will have to patch together auditorium-size “classes,” and rely on substitutes and volunteers willing to cross the picket lines.

The district has indicated it is willing to negotiate “around the clock” going into the final days before Monday’s planned strike.

If no agreement is reached, the union will launch its first district-wide strike in 30 years. Demands include reducing class sizes but there also are disagreements about a pay raise, charter schools, and staffing levels for nurses, counselors and librarians. Negotiations have been ongoing for two years.

School aides, cafeteria workers and bus drivers are expected to report to schools in the event of a strike, but 10 campuses will observe “sympathy strikes” according to SEIU Local 99: Carson High School; Hadden Avenue Early Education Center in Pacoima; Hart Street Elementary School in Canoga Park; Haskell STEAM Magnet Elementary School in Granada Hills; Herrick Avenue Elementary School in Sylmar; Liggett Street Elementary School in Panorama City; Robert F. Kennedy Elementary School in Los Angeles; Sylmar Senior High in Sylmar; 93rd Elementary School in Los Angeles and 99th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles.

A hotline for parents has been established by the district: 213-443-1300

Donna Littlejohn has covered the Harbor Area as a reporter since 1981. Along with development, politics, coyotes, battleships and crime, she writes features that have spotlighted an array of topics, from an alligator on the loose in a city park to the modern-day cowboys who own the trails on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. She loves border collies and Aussie dogs, cats, early California Craftsman architecture and most surviving old stuff. She imagines the 1970s redevelopment sweep that leveled so much of San Pedro's historic waterfront district as very sad.

Sarah Favot is an award-winning Los Angeles-based freelance writer. Most recently she was a data and investigative reporter at L.A. School Report, a non-profit education news website. Prior to that she was a staff writer for the L.A. Daily News covering county government. She is Vice President of the Los Angeles Chapter of The Society of Professional Journalists.